Pinguicula saetabensis — Vorstman's Guide to the Carnivorous Plants

No photograph of this species under a Creative Commons licence or in the public domain is in the guide yet.

Identification

A rosette of yellow-green, oblong leaves with a glandular coat that glistens and feels greasy; the margin is curled upward and on a vertical wall the leaves are held obliquely. The scapes are glabrous and each carries one two-lipped flower with a bluish violet corolla, a paler throat and a long spur — the hallmark of the group the species belongs to. The seed is small with a reticulate coat, one of the characters on which the species was separated from its relatives. Reliable measurements for plant, corolla and spur were not freely available while this guide was compiled and are therefore not given.

Similar species

The species was long confused with the Iberian rock butterworts of Andalusia and Castilla-La Mancha: the plants were placed in turn with P. vallisneriifolia, with P. dertosensis and with P. mundi. Only morphological and molecular work at the University of Alicante established the split. For the field-guide reader the message is simple: a rock butterwort in the limestone hills of inland Valencia is this species; all the other Iberian species of this group grow in other ranges. Identification on appearance alone is unreliable within this group.

The trap and how it works

Glue in a cool, permanently damp crevice. The leaf bears stalked glands producing a sticky droplet and sessile glands that release digestive enzymes once prey is lying on them. What sticks are mosquitoes, gnats and other small flying insects that seek the shade and humid air of the ravine, plus springtails from the moss cushions. After a catch the leaf margin rolls slowly over the prey, so the digestive fluid does not run off the wall. On freshly deposited tufa, which is little more than crystallised lime, there is no other route to nitrogen.

Habitat and ecology

Shaded limestone walls and banks with crevices, where calcareous water emerges permanently from the rock and deposits tufa. The plant roots in those crevices and in the wet tufa crust, in ravines that stay cool and humid through their aspect while the surroundings are Mediterranean-dry. It is a decidedly fragile habitat: the tufa is soft, the water comes from a single vein, and the whole site can vanish if that vein dries or is tapped. In this landscape the butterwort counts as an indicator of the quality of these tufa springs.

Distribution and elevation

The interior of the province of Valencia, in the limestone hills around Enguera and Moixent, where the species is known from a few shaded ravines. The range is thus extremely small — a handful of ravines within one hill country — and the epithet refers to Saetabis, the classical name of the town of Xàtiva in the same district. Our own species list gives only 'Spain'; for a plant with so small and sharply bounded a distribution that is uselessly coarse.

Recorded (one-degree cells)

Distribution based solely on records at GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), not on TDWG regions — those are often far larger than the actual range. The light halo is the area around a record, the dark core the record itself. The darker square is the only one-degree cell — roughly a hundred and ten kilometres — in which the species has been recorded, from all GBIF records. This is coarser than for most species because hardly any record of this plant carries an accurate coordinate. It shows where the species has been seen, not where it occurs: an empty square means nothing.

Forms and variation

No wild varieties are recognised. Such differences between plants as can be seen — size, number of flowers, saturation of the blue-violet — simply follow the wetness and shelter of the crevice they stand in. More interesting is the species' place in the Iberian puzzle: its description in 2019 was the first in a run of segregations soon followed by P. casperiana and P. tejedensis. What once looked like one widespread species turns out to be a series of local plants in isolated limestone massifs.

Where and when to see it

Spring is the time: April and May, while water still pours from the walls. Search the shaded, north-facing ravines and follow the water to its source; tufa walls are recognisable by their dark, wet sheen. Look at eye level and above. On no account step onto the tufa crust — it bears no weight and the plant roots in precisely that — and keep to the floor of the ravine. With a population this size every damaged square metre tells, so look, photograph and leave everything else standing.

Conservation status

The species has not been assessed for the global Red List; there is no international category and CITES does not apply. What its describers do say is clear: on revision the Valencian populations were classed as endangered and regional authorities were urged to take protective measures without delay. The range consists of a few ravines, the habitat is fragile, and the spring feeding the site can fail through abstraction or a dry run of years. The absence of a global assessment means here only that the file has not yet been opened.

Scientific name

Pinguicula saetabensis | Crespo, Martínez-Azorín & Alonso, 2018

Described by Manuel B. Crespo, Mario Martínez-Azorín and Rubén Alonso in 2018, in the article "Morphological and molecular data support recognition of a new rupicolous species of Pinguicula (Lentibulariaceae) from the Iberian Peninsula", Plant Biosystems. The species occurs in a very restricted area in central-southern Valencia province, Spain, in a few shaded ravines around Enguera and Moixent. The name "saetabensis" derives from Saetabis Augusta, the Roman name for the present-day city of Xàtiva, which lies close to this species' habitat.

World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.